what a mess you've made of your love
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: Dis should have expected her brother to bother things up to an unnecessary level, but this? This exceeded all of her expectations entirely. Bagginshield, Thilbo, Thorin/Bilbo - post Battle of Five Armies AU


Author's Note: Okay, so this was a prompt from vampygurl402. I did my best, but it didn't come out quite the way I wanted it to. My deepest apologies if this isn't quite what you meant, because I imagine you meant for this prompt to be a little bit more silly than it ended up being. Also dwarven saying are hard to oe up with, man, like really hard. Anywho, it's Bagginshield and shit. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

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Dis, daughter of Thrain, crown princess of Erebor, leader of the dwarves that dwelled in the Blue Mountains, wasn't sure how it had gone so wrong.

Or actually, to be as accurate as an axe thrown by Mahal, she wasn't sure how it had gone wrong for so _long._ She wasn't terribly surprised it had gone wrong in the first place; it was her dolt of a brother and pair of rock-skulled sons at the forefront of the company after all, but for it to have gone on for months…

She'd expected better of the rest of the company, to be as honest as a well lit cavern. Balin and Dwalin were usually above this kind of behavior, but here they were, running around with the rest of the Company, acting as if they had possessed nothing but moss between their ears. She had thought it was a prank at first; her sons had tried time and time again to pull various tricks on her as they were growing. It wasn't until she saw her brother and took in the lines on his face along with the shadows in his eyes, that she understood there was no one waiting around the corner to laugh at her confusion. Her stomach turned every time she thought about the mess her brother had made of his journey, the mess she now had to find a way to clean up.

To her, the mess was defined simply, though her sons had taken hours to tell the tale of what had happened. Mostly it had taken so long because they had wasted time interrupting each other to contradict parts of the story, shoving elbows in the other's gut and shouting at the top of their lungs. But the long winding tale of their six month journey boiled down to two important points their mother. The first point was that Thorin Oakenshield was an absolute dolt and once he was completely healed she was going to thrash him with her war hammer. The second important point…

"Mahal give me strength," she muttered, following the sound of Bombur's voice down the corridor. "Give me the strength to deal with this gaggling group of idiots who have been muddling a simple situation into such a pile of crushed coal." She turned the corridor's hallway, taking a deep breath to brace herself as she came toward the kitchen doorway. The doors had been removed from most of the rooms, too old and broken to be any use, and she stopped in the open doorway, taking in the scene in front of her.

The second important piece of information that the boys had made clear to her, though they did not know it, was that their poor hobbit burglar, Bilbo Baggins, deserved an entire kingdom of his own for putting up with the Company running around him like smithies without their hammers.

"Mister Bilbo," Bombur said, purposefully failing at kneading the dough in front of him, "I just cannot get it. Could you show me again?"

The hobbit was standing in the middle of the kitchen, exasperation written in the tired lines of his face. Kili had told her that Bilbo had been a plump little fellow with a rather large smile at the start of their journey, but the man standing next to Bombur was almost as thin as an elf and his face was almost as stern. She had not seen him smile once in the week since her arrival, though Fili told it as if the hobbit had dared to smile even in the face of Azog, the great orc, may Mahal take a dump on the tattered remains of his corpse.

"Again," Bilbo asked, his voice thin and strained like a frayed rope. "Really, Bombur? We have been at this for hours already and you still cannot knead dough? Did you take a blow to the head, friend, when you were upon the battlefield?"

"Bombur's always been wretched at kneading dough," Fili lied smoothly, interjecting before Bombur could flounder through an explanation that didn't involve memory loss or the truth. Her son was sitting upon the rickety table in the corner of the kitchen, the one too dirty to use to prepare meals but too sturdy despite the years to simply destroy. Dis had told her elder son more times than she cared to reflect on since arriving that a prince did not sit upon the tops of tables, but they had not noticed her in the shadows yet and she wasn't keen to give up her spot.

For a second Bombur looked so offended that she was sure Bilbo was going to notice and realize it was a sham. But then Bilbo sighed, a whole body affair of miserable exhaustion, and rolled his sleeves up a little higher on his forearms. He stepped forward and explained, with great care in every sentence, how easy it was to knead dough. He then spent the next couple minutes kneading the dough, body turned so that Bombur could see what he was doing. Bombur wasn't watching him as closely as he should have to make it believable, but Bilbo either didn't notice or suspected what the company was trying to do. Once he had kneaded the dough and broken it down into little balls that would then bake into rolls Bilbo turned from the table where he had been standing, wiping his hands on a spare rag as he went.

"Wait, Mister Bilbo," Bombur called out, waving frantically. The hobbit did not pause at first. "Where are you going?"

Slowly Bilbo halted his purposeful steps, shoulders slumping in something like defeat. "Gandalf will be here in two days," he said quietly. "I need to pack my things so that I can return home."

"You don't have to go, Bilbo," Fili muttered, sullen and quiet, more like a child of forty than a grown dwarf. Briefly Dis wondered where her younger son was, because as children Kili had always been the one to guilt their audience into complying while Fili sulked in the background. Kili would have pulled out his best sad eyes, begging Bilbo to stay, and it would have worked too; Dis had seen that trick of his work time and time again on Thorin, bless her brother's thick, stubborn hide, and Bilbo, brave though the stories her sons told painted him to be, was no match for her baby boy's pleading.

"You could stay, Mister Bilbo," Bombur confirmed earnestly. He took two small steps toward the Company's burglar, reaching out with sticky hands before remembering that he was covered in scraps of dough and dropping them back to his sides. "No one's kicking you out the door and we could definitely use the extra pair of hands."

Bilbo snorted quietly. From what Dis had heard of the little burglar, that snort was one of the mannerisms he had picked up from his dwarven companions over the course of the trip. Kili had let it slip that they had been trying to teach him several Khuzdul curses during their travels, in secret of course. They had expected her to be mad, as any dwarf would have at the knowledge that an outsider was being taught their language, but she had already seen Thorin by that point, so she had squashed her initial anger underfoot and said nothing.

"If your king was on his feet, I would be out your front gate faster than Kili could shoot an arrow," Bilbo muttered quietly, almost too lowly for Dis to hear. "And more hands arrive each day in the form of dwarves, who are much more capable at reviving a _dwarven city _to its glory than a _hobbit_ would be. Now, if you'll be so kind as to excuse me, I must pack my things."

And there was the problem at the heart of the mountain, Dis reflected. Bilbo believed that Thorin would toss him out the second he learned of his continued presence within Erebor's halls. The Company shared this belief of his, but sought to defy their wounded king by seeking out every task they could think of to keep the hobbit within their halls. The way Kili and Fili had told it Bilbo had been ready to leave them almost before the wounded had all been moved within Erebor's proper, but the company had protested wildly, claiming that Bilbo was still hurt from the battle and needed more than a week's rest before he traveled. Once that excuse had run its course they had claimed they needed help clearing spare rooms, as able bodies were hard to come by. Each company member had a different way of distracting Bilbo from his task of leaving, until Gandalf had been called away and could no longer escort him home. But Gandalf was returning and the pair were set to leave as soon as possible, to avoid being caught outside the Shire when winter fell in several months time. Meanwhile, unknown to the Company who refused to see him out of the belief that he hated Bilbo, Thorin Oakenshield was heartsick by the belief he held within his mind to be true that the hobbit burglar had already returned to his hole in the Shire.

Bilbo Baggins turned, but before he could take a step further Kili burst in through the small servants door to his right. Her younger son looked like a troll had swung him around in a spider's nest, cobwebs stuck to his arms and dust over most of his clothes. His hair was tied back from his face, though a few strands had slipped free of his clasp and stuck to the sweat on his cheeks.

"Bilbo," Kili shouted. Dis had a knife in her hand, moving to step forward to meet her son before she remembered sharply that she had been trying to stay out of sight. Kili took no notice of her, though Bombur did, eyes widening a little as he turned and spotted her. She pulled a finger quickly to her lips, motioning him to be silent, and Bombur nodded ever so slightly.

Bilbo reacted much the same way she had, body tightening with tension, fear lancing across his hallow cheeks. "Kili," he cried, reaching for the dwarf; his hands ghosted over Kili's arms and side, as if searching for wounds. "What's wrong? Why are you covered in cobwebs? Are there spiders within Erebor? Have they overrun Mirkwood? What's wrong?"

Kili shrugged off the hobbit's fretting much as he had always shrugged off her own worry, shoulders bouncing merrily, grin stretched across his face. "Mirkwood is fine," Kili promised, "and there are no spiders within our walls. But Ori had found a section of the libraries that we thought was lost and needs your help going over the books to see what can be saved. He said they're very rare indeed and that, if you're not too busy, he needs your help at once."

Wherein teaching Bombur to knead dough for what was probably the fifth time since they had reclaimed Erebor had made the hobbit look like he'd been shot in the side with an arrow, the prospect of wading through musty, ratty books perked him up quite a bit. Bilbo turned to face Kili completely, interest written in every tired twitch of his little frame, and from behind his back Fili gave his brother a silent sign of thanks. How Kili had known Bilbo was in need of another distraction was beyond Dis, but after a few excuses and pleasantries Bilbo followed her dirty dark haired son from the kitchen and into the corridor beyond.

Fili slouched against the table he sat upon, dropping his head back with obvious relief. "We need better excuses," he told the ceiling, dragging a hand down his beard. He had the beard of a man, strong and well groomed despite the circumstances, and Dis was proud of him, even as her heart ached for him. Exhaustion was in every movement of every dwarf she passed, but Fili wore the exhaustion atop his shoulders like an undershirt, on top of which he piled the responsibilities of being the heir to the throne and one of the last of the Durin line like they were winter layers. Her son, her first born baby boy, battle worn and finally in possession of a home, tattered and terrible as it looked at the present moment. Dis stepped forward, unable to keep in the shadows a moment longer when her son looked so tired.

"You need to clean and bandage the wound, son of mine, not simply tie a torn piece of your shirt over the bleeding and hope for the best."

Fili jumped slightly, shoulders tightening before they relaxed once more. He did not budge from the table top, but Dis was tired of games. She had watched for a week as Gandalf's arrival came closer and closer, watched as the Company more desperate and Thorin grew more solemn with every passing day. Dis walked forward, tapping her son on the side when she reached the edge of the table until he moved over. Once he had moved she hoisted herself up upon the table, sitting upon its surface just as he was.

"Mother," he said, sputtering indignantly. The table creaked ominously under both of their weights. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting, son," she said, giving him the same smile she had always received whenever Kili and Fili had gotten into trouble but didn't want to admit it. Her elder son sputtered some more while Bombur laughed quietly as he cleaned up the kitchen from their disaster of a distraction. Fili's face contorted in annoyance before he seemed to discard her behavior and returned to the matter at hand.

"No one is hurt, mother, so why would we clean and bandage wounds? Unless Bilbo's been hurt and has not told us, but surely one of us would have noticed that."

Dis made a sound of annoyance in the back of her throat and smacked her son lightly on the arm. "I wasn't referring to an actual wound, you stone-headed boy. Do you actually have moss between your ears?" Fili sputtered again, cheeks flushing angrily, but Bombur laughed, interrupting.

"She's talking about our scheme to keep Bilbo within the mountain, lad," the cook explained, voice lowered as if they were talking of treason. To Bombur it probably seemed like treason, but Dis knew something that the Company simply refused to see. Understanding stole across her son's face like a star across the sky, causing him to make a small sound in the back of his throat.

"Oh," he muttered quietly. "But how are we going to get that done?"

"Don't worry, son," Dis said quietly. "I have a plan."

"Brother mine, you need to leave this room," Dis announced hours later, striding into his sick room purposefully. Dwalin walked behind her, quiet and sturdy. He had not been her first choice in cohorts for their plan, but Balin had outright refused to go along with them. There had been a rousing argument in the kitchen when her elder son had fetched the white bearded dwarf to be brought in on the plan, an argument like the lad had never seen before, as Balin hadn't raised his voice to her since she was a child of forty. Dis cared not, however, for she had enough of the foolishness that had gone on for too long within these halls. If this wasn't resolved tonight she would set her axe to rest against someone's skull, she swore it on her beard.

Thorin glowered at her from inside his nest of furs. "No," he said simply.

"Fresh air will do you good," Dis argued, reaching to pull the furs off of him. He fought back, but weakly, a testament to how drastic his injury truly was. "Dwalin will take you out to the balconies where you will be able to rest and breathe clean air. Mahal only knows what all this must has been doing to your lungs."

"Dis," Thorin growled, but Dis wasn't having any of it. She smacked his arm roughly, taking pleasure in the way he yelped like a kicked mutt as the abuse.

"No more wallowing," she snapped. "Get out of that bed right now or Mahal help me I will finish the job that wretched orc started."

Thorin's face twisted into an expression of sullen hatred, but he moved sluggishly to sit up. Dis lingered only long enough to make sure Thorin exited the bed and began dressing before she left, Dwalin giving her a nod before the door shut behind her. The other dwarf brother's earlier protests rang in her ears, but she listened to them no more, striding purposefully down the hallway. As she reached the more populated areas dwarves began giving her nods of recognition, several of them even going so far as to move out of her way as she came closer. The libraries were on the far side of the mountain, but her strides were long and her brother was injured and sullen enough that the act of dressing would take him a while, not to mention the act of walking.

The libraries were just as she remembered them from her childhood, if a little more dusty that before. Thorin had spent more time within their walls than she had, though not by much, and for a moment she was lost at which section to search first. The hobbit could be anywhere within the shelves, lost amongst the dust and the debris, but before she could begin to get irritated Kili rounded a corner and rushed to her side.

"Fili came and told me the plan," he whispered excitedly. Dis was not sure her son needed to speak so quietly, as there seemed to be no one in sight, but her boys had always been as over dramatic as possible whenever they could. She smiled faintly at the behavior, reaching out to pull her younger to her side. She pressed a kiss to his brow despite his sputtering protests, enjoying the moment while it lasted.

"Mother," he hissed, pulling out of her reach.

"Hush, son of mine," she said. Her earlier conviction came back to her and she straightened, head turning so that she could scan the area around her. She did not hear anyone else in the vicinity, but everyone had remarked on how quiet the hobbit could be when it pleased him, so she would be careful. "Where is Master Baggins? I have a favor to ask him."

"Mother, are you sure I shouldn't ask him?"

"Hush," Dis repeated. She strode forward into the library purposefully, Kili hurrying after her as she went. "Master Baggins," she called out, walking down one of the shelved aisles at random. "Master Baggins, are you here?"

"Um, yes," a voice answered behind her. She whirled, hand already reaching for her axe, but it was just the hobbit, small and unassuming as he was, standing at the end of the aisle behind her, in the direction they had just come from. He was covered in dust and there were cobwebs in his hair, but he looked more relaxed and happy than he had earlier in the kitchen. Or at least he looked as such before he seemed to realize who had been calling his name. Dis watched as the small man's face dropped, fear and dread coloring his cheeks. "Your highness," he greeted, dropping into a low bow as quickly as he could.

"Master Baggins," Dis answered, bowing back. This seemed to fluster the hobbit further, causing Kili to hiss as her side quietly. She silenced her son with a quick look and strode back toward the hobbit, watching with a growing amount of doubt as the small burglar hurried to back up, so that there were at least a few feet of room between them. Dis drew up short, afraid suddenly that her brother had done too much damage to repair this friendship, but she had to try. She gave the man a small smile and ignored Kili's hushed _you're scaring him, stop that_.

"Are you busy, Master Baggins?"

"Well, sort of," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, I'm just organizing books, ma'am. It's not hard work, but I reckon it's got to be done at some point, don't you?"

"Aye," she agreed. "I do and I thank you for your efforts. But I was wondering if you could do be a quick favor."

Bilbo Baggins straightened to his full height and for the first time Dis saw the fight in the small creature that had supposedly saved her kin time and time again. There was suspicion in his eyes, clear as day, but there was also the desire to do whatever he could to help them and that did quite a lot for Dis' opinion of him. She found herself fighting a smile at the spark of anger that briefly flashed across Bilbo's face and she barely bit back a laugh at his dry remark of, "I have done favors for every other dwarf in this city, it seems, so I suppose I see no harm in lending a hand to your favor as well."

"My thanks," Dis said. "I would send my sons, but they have grown too large for the tunnels I have in mind. Though, admittedly, most of that size seems to come from their heads, which must be full of not only rocks, but also an abundance of warm air; it is the only explanation I see for such foolish behavior all the time. Don't you agree?"

Kili sputtered wildly in offense next to her and from somewhere behind them on the next aisle Fili shouted _hey_, but Bilbo Baggins' face cracked into a grin wider than the mountain was tall and his laugh echoed down the aisles and against the walls for all to here. Her skulking son rounded the corner in a furious fit, his cheeks bright pink with annoyance, which only seemed to delight the hobbit further. The little man laughed and laughed, tears springing to his eyes as he shook with mirth.

"Oh my," he said, once he had settled down. "I haven't laughed like that in quite a long time." Then he straightened once more, a smile quirking his lips up to one side as he glanced between her two indignant sons. "Lead the way to wherever you need me to be, Lady Dis," he said. Dis turned and lead the way out of the library, her sons and the hobbit following along after her. Ori peeked out from behind a bookcase as they left, giving her a quick sign that meant _good luck _in the silent language of the hands. The three following her chatted quietly between themselves, the boys pestering the burglar endlessly, as they probably had during the course of their journey. Mister Baggins proved to be quite skilled in humoring her sons' endless questions, which only proved that thought correct. They reached the corridor Dis needed at a much slower pace than the one she had used to reach the library, but DIs used that time to calm the restless stirring in her breast and to silence the doubts that lingered in her mind. This would work, she told herself sternly.

"So," the hobbit said suddenly, "what do you need me to go into this tunnel for?"

Dis cleared her throat and shot her sons a look as they both opened their mouths at once. "This is a backdoor passage to the balconies just outside the royal rooms. The regular entrance has collapsed upon itself just past the king's chambers, denying us access to several additional rooms and blocking the flow of fresh air through parts of the mountain. I need to know if the collapse continues all the way out onto the balconies or if it is only present at the section just beyond the king's chamber door."

At the mention of the king's chamber Bilbo Baggins went very still indeed. But he nodded and squared his shoulders bravely despite his obvious discomfort at the topic. They reached the part of the corridor that hid the tunnel and with a wave Dis indicated the opening in front of her. "It is but a crack, as you can see," she said, "and it will be smaller in some places than others. Mahal only knows why this tunnel even exists, but if it becomes too dangerous or narrow for you, Master Baggins, know that you will not be shamed for turning back."

The hobbit gave her a sharp nod before he stepped forward and disappeared into the opening. Almost before his shadow could follow him her sons jumped forward, both trying to talk at once. Dis hushed them sharply, waiting with baited breath for a few moments until she was sure the burglar could no longer hear them. Once she was sure she sighed and nodded her head at her sons, turning to go back to the kitchen where the others waited.

Fili hurried so that he could walk on one side of her. Kili rushed to walk on the other side, his face a match to his brother's concern. They did not speak for a long time, at which point they were almost at the kitchens, but finally her sons could take it no more. "Mother," Fili said abruptly, pulling up short in the stone corridor. "Are you sure this will work?"

"Yes, Mother, are you sure," Kili asked, grabbing her arm. He almost pulled her to a stop as well, but she took another step, dragging her younger son along with her and causing the older to follow. "What if Thorin tries to toss him off the ledge again? He _hates_ Bilbo!"

Dis snorted, rolling her eyes at her two boys fondly. "How would you know how your uncle fels about the hobbit, considering the fact you have not seen him in over a month?" Her boys seemed offended by this, but held their tongues as she continued on. "Perhaps if you had visited him, as you should have, you would know what I now know."

"And what do you know that we do not," Balin asked as they arrived within the kitchen. The Company turned to look at her, all seeming to hold their breaths as they waited for her answer. Against the far wall Dwalin stood, shoulder pressed back against the stone, and when he met her eyes he nodded once, a sliver of a smile peeking out at the corner of his mouth.

"Thorin does not hate the hobbit," she announced, adding under her breath, "though that would be a much smarter move on his part."

"He tried to toss him off the battlements," Gloin pointed out heatedly. "Seems like hate to me!"

"Aye, and none of you had the good sense to bother stopping him," Dis pointed out roughly. Immediately shame rose to the cheeks of the men in front of her, silencing their tongues and allowing her to continue. "My daft brother was under the spell of the gold lust, same as you lot, and did not know of what he was doing. If you had all been visiting, as you should have, you would have seen the misery he has been wearing like a cloak plain as day."

"Misery," Kili repeated quietly. Kili and Fili spun to look at Dwalin, who had been the only one in the Company to visit Thorin since he woke. "He's miserable?"

"Aye, laddie," Dwalin said. "Sadder than a forge without a fire and just as purposeless."

"Why didn't you say something," Fili cried. The Company echoed his sentiment, but Dwalin growled at them lowly, hushing their protests.

"If you recall correctly, I tried," he pointed out. "But Mahal help us all, you lot were too busy rushing around trying to keep the burglar busy to listen to a thing I said. Fussing about like a bunch of elves you were, when the solution to your problem lay wallowing in his bed."

Bofur's face lit up with excitement and he turned to face Dis. He pulled his hat off and wrung it between his hands, stepping closer. "You can't be meaning what I think you're meaning, are you, your highness?"

Dis smiled thinly and sighed softly. "Your thickskulled king is lovesick," she confirmed, "and absolutely convinced the hobbit has left and he's missed his chance to apologize to the gem of his heart."

"But that means when he sees Bilbo," Balin said, eyes widening. He cut off sharply, flushing high up on his cheeks once more. "My apologizes, my lady," the old dwarf said suddenly, "for doubting you in such a way."

Dis gave the white bearded dwarf a tired smile. "Don't apologize quite yet, cousin," she said. "Just because Thorin feels badly about what he did does not mean Bilbo will forgive him. We might be scraping bits of my brother off the rock outside if that hobbit of his decides to get his revenge. But we might not."

They did not, in fact, need to scrape anyone off the rocks below the balcony. Dis ended up holding the matter of the hobbit's stay within the mountain over the Company's heads for years to come, though she wasn't the only one. Bilbo Baggins, burglar for the Company of Thorin Oakenshield and gem of her brother's heart, ranted and raved at the Company for days once he found out how horridly the mess had become tangled. Dis found she quite liked the little creature that had stolen her brother's favor, though she liked having her brother happy and whole even more.


End file.
